Piece of Pie
by Indigo2831
Summary: Tag to "Soul Survivor." Dean's not a demon anymore. Sam doesn't know what to do, so he makes a lot of pies. Angst and bonding abound.


Hi! I know it's been awhile. I wrote this story to fill in the aftermath of last week's episode because of course they left us waiting for the broment. It's also distracting me from the fact that I'm not at Chicon again this year. I hope you like it. Please let me know what you think.

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><p><strong>The Pie Cure<strong>

Sam could only focus on simple things.

If he tried anything more complicated like past events, his hands would go numb and static crackled in his ears. He threatened to shutdown like an old puttering laptop, so he kept his thoughts placid and unrippled, calm like the surface of a still lake.

_Shave with your left hand. Your right arm is hurt._

That meant leaving meals outside Dean's room and decidedly not hovering. Without the sulfur blackening his eyes and soul, Dean had lapsed into a shell-shocked quiet. He'd answer questions when Sam came into air the room out, adding a too-bright "Sammy" at the end, but he was screaming for distance in the negative space between his words. Sam obliged.

_I need some, too. _

He spent a lot time in tinkering around the bunker. Odd jobs were good therapy for his busted shoulder. Today, the unopened, long-forgotten crate of fruit had caught his eye. Jody Mills had taken to sending him boxes of fruit, mothering him even from afar. He often sent her a picture of him grinning with a crate of Cotton Candy Grapes or gnawing on segments of blood oranges. He'd done it even when Dean was...away.

_I promised to eat it._

So Sam got to work, following a recipe in one of the old cookbooks in the bunker's kitchen. This one called for lard and butter. The dough was cold and crumbly between his fingers. The circular motion of kneading sent jolts of pain up his arm, where they simmered in his chest and shoulder, but it was a necessary healing pain. He peeled the apples in one long strip with a hunting knife, baptized them in sugar and cinnamon and a bit of lemon. He trimmed the slides and weaved the lattice. Soon the smell of apple pie and browning butter was wafting from their clanking oven. There was more flour and butter and the fruit remaining fruit was going to spoil it wasn't dealt with. The work pacified his mind, so Sam kept going.

_Don't forget to send Jodi a picture when you're done._

He was kneading dough fourth time when he heard the creak of a door, and the padding-slide of bare feet on tile. He scarcely moved as Dean ghosted through the bunker, feather-light and haunting. He'd leave the room sometimes, to use the bathroom or retrieve more whiskey, then retreat without a word.

This time, the footsteps echoed closer and Dean materialized in the kitchen, lingering in the doorway.

Sam froze, something dark and nasty clicked inside of him, the automatic turn of a lock. It made him sick when he realized it was fear. As much as he attributed Demon Dean's behavior to the evil poisoning him, but Sam had still been threatened, assaulted and left to be killed by something with Dean's eyes, his soul and his mannerisms. Being near him was harder than Sam wanted to admit.

When Dean entered the kitchen, he pointedly didn't make sure the salt was in reach and refused to keep his ears tuned for the unsheathing of knives. Demon Dean had used a hammer anyway. He simply kept kneading, with his right hand.

The quiet was stretched between them, anxious and unsure.

Dean surrendered first. "Are you sure that's good for your arm?" His voice was whiskey-rough.

"Need to work the joint otherwise it'll freeze," Sam replied, echoing the nurse's warnings after his surgery. It startled him that his voice sounded just as rusted.

Dean moved within Sam's line of sight, clad in Raybands, an oversized robe and not much else. He immediately noticed that his brother moved normally now. Demon Dean slithered on two legs. He scratched his cheek, surveying the two pies cooling on the table. Sam was reassured and awed by the rumbling of his belly.

"What happened to it anyway?"

Sam closed his eyes, teeth digging into his cheek.

_Lightning struck soundlessly outside as rain rattled the roof, falling down through rotten-through holes in the roof, suffocatingly cold like the racks in hell. Machinery clamored to life. The demon, Ren, appeared through the coughing smoke and crackling sparks, eyes glowing red, mouth upturned like a Chesire cat. Sam was struck with a healthy bolt of fear and a desperate surge of adrenaline. Castiel was at his back, well-hidden, but Sam could sense his grace. His presence put Sam at ease. _

Sam banged the dough ball on the table, ripping himself from bad thoughts and grief-stricken memories. "Broken scapula."

Dean winced beside him, concern arranging his features. Sam had been expecting glee instead. "Um..._ouch_."

"Yeah," Sam said.

_The dough needs more flour. It's too tacky._

Dean adjusted his sunglasses. Sam tried not to think about beetle black eyes.

He reached out to grasp his arm, unexpectedly tactile after days of silence and Sam involuntarily sidestepped out of reach.

Dean's hand shot back quickly. "M'sorry. I just wanted to see."

It wasn't uncommon for them to check out each other's injuries, make sure they weren't lying when they told each other they were fine. Sam forced himself to be still and reached out, offering his right hand to Dean. His brother's palm and warm and rough and calloused. When Demon had been demonized, his skin was unnaturally cold and he reeked of sulfur. His touch was always violent. Sam gripped latched on this, and let it ground him.

"Good grip, Sammy. Cas mentioned taking a break, and I think that's probably a good idea to let that arm heal." Sam could tell Dean was eyeing the shoulder, and noticed the swelling from Cole's handiwork.

Sam went back the empty tin, working the dough into the corners.

_Work quickly, the heat of your hands will melt the butter. The crust will not be flaky. _

"Did you hear me, Sammy?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

Dean hopped up on the counter and primly adjusted his robe. He'd always been at ease in the bunker, moreso than Sam had ever seen him in motel rooms. He lavished himself with long showers and Saturday morning in his boxers or sweats, shoeless and loose. He plucked a grape from the bunch in the crate. "Look, I'm trying here. I've given you space for you to try to wrap that giant geek brain around all this and ya know, I threw away all the hammers. You gotta give me something here."

"That's what you were doing," Sam huffed a laugh, shaking his head. "...you were giving me space."

"That and upping my tolerance to whiskey. I still feel like someone turned my soul inside out and then shoved it through a meat grinder. W-what did you think I was doing?"

Sam wasn't sure. He hadn't thought of much besides laundry and fruit and rehabbing his broken shoulder. "I, um, nothing. I'm tired," he said lamely. It was the truth at least.

Dean approached him as if he were a skittish fawn. When he was within reach, he took Sam by the elbow of his uninjured arm and led him over to the small table, folding him into a chair. "You look it...that and about ten, fifteen pounds lighter. You been eating?"

Sam's head was swimming and his neck felt flushed. He shot Dean a glare.

"Stupid question." Dean joined him at the table and pushed a banana into his hand, already peeled. "Its nothin' a few dozen cheeseburgers can't cure."

Sam sucked in a quick breath, nearly choking on a mouthful of banana. Dean wanted to talk. He didn't even have to see those not-black eyes to register the expectation. He could feel it. The part of him that was tuned to Dean like some sort of fraternal seismograph, monitoring the peaks and valleys of his mood, registered it. A hopeful line with cautious rises, a patiently glowing light when Sam had gotten used to do the darkness.

_It was a cheesy trick that they snickered at in movies and made for cheap camp: the sudden darkness and the emerging of glowing red eyes. _

_In person, it was effectively horrifying. Sam hadn't even opened his mouth to begin to bargain with the mid-level crossroads demon before Ren attacked, popping already flickering bulbs of the abandoned factory and from surrounded lot. The moment elongated into something slow and terrible. Beyond the beating of his own heart, Sam could hear the demons panting and cracking their knuckles. Lightning struck and Sam could see them moving arcing out of their bodies and funneling into the air and funnelling into a demonic tornado. "Cas hel.." The sentence was never finished. Sulfur filled the air, whipping through his hair and stinging his eyes. Sam was blown back against the wall, the back of his head cracking against something hard and metal. _

_Those leering eyes were inches from his, huge and aglow with hate. _

_"You want to know where you brother is, don't you? You want to Winchester your way out of the natural order? Again?" _

_"I just want to know who took my brother's body. I want him back so I can...put him to rest," Sam said, honestly. _

_Lightning struck just in time to illuminate Ren's unnaturally elated smile. There were few things that could make a demon happy, and none of them were in the realm of good. "Sorry, kid, I don't do family reunions." _

_"Kill me then," Sam spat. _

_"And spoil the big reveal? I'd never dream of it," Ren winked. "But who's to say I can't have a little fun?" _

_Suddenly, he was being broken from the inside out, a phantom of Ren's wretched hands inside of him. The shoulder bone snapped in two like an oddly shaped twig, with an audible crunch. Sam screamed. Ren cackled. Castiel appeared too late. _

"I know what you want from me, Dean and I can't right now. I can't talk to you about your death or the weeks I spent looking for your body, what I did to get there. I can't tell you how I broke my shoulder or what I went through to track you down...and what happened when I did." Sam said, his voice breaking. "I haven't even processed any of it yet...and Dean, _I can't_."

Dean hooked a finger around his sunglasses and pulled them down the bridge of his nose. His eyes were bruised and bloodshot. He looked awful, unshaven, wasted and suffering, but it was a beautiful sight when compared to the waxy dead complexion of Demon Dean or Dead Dean in rigor in the Impala's back seat. "Sammy, I'm...just glad you're not throwing punches at me. I'd be an asshole to expect anything more." Dean said. "I wanted to make sure you're okay."

Sam scoffed, hating that his hands were shaking again. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Touché, kid." Dean glanced around the kitchen and honed in on the two pies cooling on the far table.

He got up and smelled them, admiring Sam's lattice work on the peach one and the artful cutouts in the other. He grabbed one made with apples studded with rum-soaked cherries, a can of whipped cream and two forks. He set it down in front of them. "How about we eat this pie and then go take the world's longest nap with the TV on?"

"Sounds good," Sam whispered.

They dug in, forks clicking the bottom of the tin. Dean moaned in his appreciation, licking an errant cherry from the corner of his mouth. "Mhmm...love me some pie," he muttered to himself. His left leg bounced contentedly beneath the table.

Tears in his eyes, Sam stared at Dean, undemonized and whole. The hazy distance he'd given the world fell away. He wasn't okay but he would be. They would be.

_My brother's back._


End file.
